I have a
challenge for you this week. Really
listen to each person who leads you in prayer, not just on Sundays during a
worship service but anytime anyone prays whether opening a meeting, over lunch,
or because someone is in need. Listen for
the grace.
While you
are at it, listen to your own prayers.
Survey them for grace. J.I.
Packer asks: Do you claim to know the
love and grace of God in your own life?
Prove your claim, then, by going and praying likewise. Prayers reveal if we know the love and grace
of God.
I know I
fail to recognize the reality of grace in my daily life. I cheapen grace by overlooking my own
personal sins and those of people who sin like me. I distance myself from God when I use prayer
as a social custom to open or close a meeting rather than address Him in
humility and recognize the goodness of God’s grace that allows me to talk to
Him through prayer.
I ignore
grace when I wake up each morning demanding that the day give me all the air I
need to breathe, hot water for my shower and coffee brewed to just the right
temperature without one thought
acknowledging the grace of God provided in each of these gifts. I may not even notice my lack of grace when I
assume the person who cut me off on the way to work is just being a jerk rather
than considering the reality that I don’t own the part of the road he pushed
his way into. I live with little
aptitude towards grace.
Paul, on
the other hand, seemed as aware of the grace of God as John Newton, who wrote
the most famous hymn in the world—Amazing
Grace. Paul said it so truthfully in
I Corinthians 15:10: But
by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.
No, I worked harder than all of them —yet not I, but the grace of God that was
with me.
So
how do prayers sound if they are coming from a place of grace? First of all they show more than what we
think of as due respect to God. They
reveal that you need His grace to even attempt to think of Him. Jesus gave us a few pointers for using our
minds, hearts and spirits when praying.
He told us to pray to God as Our Father.
There is huge grace displayed right there. Addressing God as our Father recognizes His
irrational love for us from the heart of a good Father to a child. He also told us to pray to God recognizing
the grace of hallowing His name. It is
the goodness and grace of God that invites us to call Him by name. Praying with grace is not about repeating
certain words, even if Jesus taught them to us.
Praying with grace is opening your heart, mind and spirit to the meaning
of these words.
Julian
of Norwich said: For we are so preciously
loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it.
No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God
loves them. It is only with the help of
grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless
wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his
goodness has for us.
For
one week, refuse to pray unless you are starting from a place of relying on the
grace of God. Learn to truly say grace
with grace.
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